Pop, Rock and Jazz in NYC This Week

Image

The British group Hot Chip at last year’s Governors Ball Music Festival.CreditKrista Schlueter for The New York Times

Dec. 29, 2016

Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz.

Pop

THE BLACK LIPS at Baby’s All Right (Dec. 31, 8 p.m.). The Atlanta group the Black Lips is sure to put on the city’s most unpredictable New Year’s Eve bash: The band’s storied live shows have occasionally erupted into audience free-for-alls onstage, while at some of its most notorious concerts its members have engaged in urine-soaked antics before the crowd. The gang has toned down its reckless behavior — while upping its musicianship — as its members have aged, but the group’s fearless punk and garage-rock jams are as sharp as ever. With PMS and the Mood Swings, Daisy Glaze, Winstons and Chances With Wolves. (Kevin O’Donnell)babysallright.ticketfly.com

CYMBALS EAT GUITARS at Mercury Lounge (Dec. 30, 10:30 p.m.). Two years ago on this date, this Staten Island rock band bade farewell to the Brooklyn D.I.Y. venue Glasslands with a blistering set. For this performance, the group will arrive in Manhattan armed with a new LP, “Pretty Years,” that showcases the band at its peak. The soaring, wistful album plunges into quarter-life crises, Bruce Springsteen shout-outs and wild Fourth of July benders, with every song bursting with singalong potential. With Haybaby. (Andrew R. Chow)800-745-3000, mercuryloungenyc.com

JUSTICE, CRYSTAL CASTLES AND HOT CHIP at Pier 94 (Dec. 30, 9 p.m.). Three purveyors of stylish dance music are coming together for one epic dance party at this cavernous space on the Hudson River in Midtown Manhattan. The French duo Justice, whose 2011 album “Audio, Video, Disco” explored bombastic progressive rock territory, returned to futuristic funk grooves for their latest album, “Woman.” The British group Hot Chip skews brainier with a blend of electronic music that fuses hip-hop and R&B with house music and art rock. Those two acts will perform D.J. sets, but Crystal Castles will perform a traditional set and appeal to fans of goth music. That outfit’s 2016 album sets hip-swiveling beats to nightmarish, industrial-grade synthesizer noise, best heard on cuts like “Concrete” and “Chloroform.” (O’Donnell)800-677-6278, ticketfly.com

LETTUCE at Brooklyn Bowl (Jan. 3-4, 8 p.m.). This Boston-based funk band may be 24 years old, but it shows no sign of fatigue. In the past two years the group has released two blaring, bruising projects: the fully realized album “Crush,” complete with creeping hip-hop interludes, and the EP “Mt. Crushmore,” a driving, 20-minute horn party. The band’s pockets become only more infectious in live settings. The band will begin a three-month, coast-to-coast tour with this pair of performances. With Jaw Gems. (Chow)718-963-3369, brooklynbowl.com

Jazz

RALPH ALESSI AND THIS AGAINST THAT at Cornelia Street Café (Jan. 4, 8 and 9:30 p.m.). Mr. Alessi is a trumpeter with a precise vocabulary but a set of fearlessly intrepid instincts, and he has done some of his most exploratory work with the improvisers in this band. (Its name, with a connotation of starkly opposing forces, is fully intended.) Along with the tenor and soprano saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, a longtime front-line partner, the personnel includes the pianist Andy Milne, the bassist Drew Gress and the drummer Mark Ferber.212-989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com

DAVID BINNEY GROUP at 55 Bar (Jan. 3, 10 p.m.). The alto saxophonist David Binney favors a forward-tilt approach to the contemporary post-bop tradition — athletic, dynamic and sometimes furiously intense. He has a long, productive history with the bassist Eivind Opsvik and the drummer Dan Weiss, who form a whirring blade of rhythm in this band, alongside the hyperarticulate pianist Matt Mitchell.212-989-9883, 55bar.com

FRED HERSCH TRIO + 2 at the Village Vanguard (Jan. 3-8, 8 and 10 p.m.). “Sunday Night at the Vanguard,” the most recent trio album by the pianist Fred Hersch, demonstrates how his bond with the bassist John Hébert and the drummer Eric McPherson reaches a rarefied plane in this room. For their current engagement the three players will welcome a pair of fluent interlopers, the trumpeter Mike Rodriguez and the saxophonist Dayna Stephens.212-255-4037, villagevanguard.com

TOM RAINEY TRIO at Cornelia Street Café (Dec. 30, 9 and 10:30 p.m.). Tom Rainey, a precisely off-kilter drummer, has recently broken into bandleading, often with the partners in this trio: Ingrid Laubrock, a tenor and soprano saxophonist of exploratory instincts, and Mary Halvorson, a guitarist with a sharp-splintered but flexible attack. The band has a fine recent album — “Hotel Grief,” released in 2015 — that should provide some of the material for this one-night stand.212-989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT AND THE AARON DIEHL TRIO at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Dec. 30, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Dec. 31, 7:30 and 11 p.m.; Jan. 1, 7 and 9 p.m.). Ms. Salvant, 27, is the most fervently acclaimed jazz singer of her generation, and on her most recent album — “For One to Love,” which won a Grammy this year — she deepened her game with a bouquet of original songs. She performs as usual with a trio led by Mr. Diehl, a fastidious and swinging pianist who has been her musical director for the last several years.212-258-9595, jazz.org

PHAROAH SANDERS WITH SHABAKA AND THE ANCESTORS at Le Poisson Rouge (Jan. 5, 8 p.m.). The tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, who was honored this year as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, exudes an ecstatic, gruffly spiritual style that first coalesced in the 1960s, took full flight in the ’70s and still bears relevance today. This concert, which begins the 2017 NYC Winter Jazzfest, will feature him alongside a well-chosen opener: the young British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, whose recent album, “Wisdom of Elders,” draws more than a little inspiration from Mr. Sanders’s example.212-505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com

CHRIS SPEED at the Stone and Korzo (Jan. 2-3, 9 p.m.). Mr. Speed is a tenor saxophonist and clarinetist who can find the logical strand in an abstract canvas, and turn wobbly irresolution into a form of riveting suspense. On Jan. 2 he leads his knockabout trio at the Stone, with Chris Tordini on bass and David King on drums. (Sharing the bill is Thumbscrew, a smart, scratchy trio that includes the guitarist Mary Halvorson.) On Jan. 3 Mr. Speed leads Broken Shadows in tackling the music of Ornette Coleman at Korzo; its roster includes Mr. King, the bassist Reid Anderson and the alto saxophonist Tim Berne.thestonenyc.comkorzorestaurant.com